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How should the media handle election night?
"It's very important that if the election is very close and it comes down to say those Midwestern states, which are going to count their ballots slow, that the message is, 'too early to call.'" Election law expert Rick Hasen weighs in on how the media – both traditional outlets and social media – should handle election night coverage. His conversation with Ian Bremmer is part of the latest episode of GZERO World.
Watch the episode: What could go wrong in the US election? Rick Hasen on nightmare scenarios & challenges
Quick Take: The election is serious, but don't panic
Ian Bremmer's Quick Take:
Hi, everybody, Ian Bremmer here. It's Monday and a quick take for you right before the election. That's right. Don't panic. All of you remembering Douglas Adams, the great Douglas Adams, for those people that back in high school, this is the kind of book that you knew people that read the Hitchhiker's guide to the galaxy. You said, "That's probably a normal human being a little dorky, but isn't going to kill me," where the people that were all about Atlas shrugged and the Fountainhead, those were people that were problematic later in life. That's just my own personal view. Maybe a little Tolkien. That was also fine. A little Hobbit. I'm friendly that way, but this is the message I really want people to keep in mind in the next 24, 48, 72 hours, the next week, two, three weeks.
It's going to be tough out there. People are going nuts. They're going crazy. The media is making it worse. The social media is making it worse, and it's going to be a tough time for the United States. But to be clear, we are not on the brink of becoming an authoritarian state. We are not about to be a Banana Republic. We are not on the verge of collapse. Instead, we are very divided. A lot of people are hurting. A lot of people are angry, and we have a whole bunch of people in very different information bubbles. They don't talk to each other, engage with each other, and that is a problem. That makes the country feel so much less purposeful, mission-oriented, communal, civic, all the things that we want. If you've got a flag, if you want to be united under that flag, you have to care about all the people in the country, not just the ones that agree with you politically.
Look, this election matters. It matters a lot. It matters more than usual. I'm the one that usually says, "American elections, whoever the president is ultimately doesn't impact your life that much." This time, it does, and it does largely because there is such a big crisis right now. If you get Biden and if you get a majority Democrat in Senate, you're going to have $3 trillion of stimulus come February or March. That's massive for a new American president. If it's a divided Congress or if Trump wins, it's going to be a lot less. So, there is a very big, a significant gap. The markets are responding too. It's going to matter a lot to the people, to the States, the municipalities, right? That does really matter.
Also, if there's a majority democratic Senate, you will end the filibuster... Heck, Washington DC will probably become the 51st state. You will have the Voter Rights Act. You'll probably redo the census again because it was cut short. These are significant impacts for a long time in the United States, not just measured in years, but decades of impact and trajectory.
So, I absolutely think Biden versus Trump is very meaningful. If Biden comes in, my taxes are going up a lot. Certainly, to Obama levels, but probably much more than that, and that's going to affect a lot of wealthy Americans. The regulatory environment's going to change a lot, and if you're in a corporate that's affected by that, that's very significant. So I don't want to say that Biden versus Trump doesn't matter. It's just the idea that Biden versus Trump is somehow this end of the world for the United States is not the case.
Now, what do we think is going to happen in this election? Well, the polls are telling you very clearly Biden is ahead by a lot. He's been ahead consistently by a lot for a long time. It's been very stable. There's been no closing of that gap the way there was between Hillary and Trump. So that means whether you look at FiveThirtyEight or you look at RealClearPolitics... I personally, we've got to deal with Ipsos and we do a blend of all of the different swing state polls, we look at the national polls. It's very clear that it's 85, 90% likely looking at the polls that Trump is going to lose.
But that doesn't mean that Trump is going to lose. That means that if you have seven, eight, nine, 10 elections, one of those elections at least Trump is going to win. That is an expected outcome of a multiple series. I just wish that more people don't think that the polls are wrong when you have an outcome that's unlikely. It just means that you only have a one shot at something that you'd like a larger number for.
Well, not that we wouldn't want that from a personal perspective, because it would drive everyone truly batshit, but personally, that's what it means. So there is a real potential that Trump is the President in a legitimate election, a legitimately counted election, one that Biden would need to concede for, and Trump would lead for four more years. If that happens, we'll be okay. We'll get through it, right? Again, it's going to drive some people insane, but the reality is that the United States will continue to persist as a damaged, but nonetheless, robust country, economy, even representative democracy.
On the other hand, it's much more likely... it's vastly more likely that Biden wins. What is very unusual about this election is that even in a significant Biden win, the amount of contestation is going to be very high. The willingness of Trump to say that he has won, if he has not, is pretty significant. If he decides to do that and say it's rigged and call his supporters out onto the streets, angry that the democratic establishment is trying steal his rightfully won election, I think you're going to see a lot of violence.
We've already seen some of that with lots of convoys of Trump supporters in trucks and cars. I haven't seen that they've been armed significantly, though you saw some of that in Portland, but easily plausible going forward. I've seen a lot of them obscuring license plates, because if you're shutting down traffic or shutting down a bridge, doing something illegal, they're trying to avoid responsibility for that illegality. That's not exactly conscientious objectionism. But if Trump were to directly call for his supporters to go out in the streets because they're going to take the election from him, I think that's going to be a level of demonstrations and violence in the country that will certainly rival anything we've seen since '68, in other words, anything in my lifetime. That's a problem.
That's why you see so many cities with streets and having all the storefronts getting boarded up, and that's being true in big urban areas all over the place, including right downstairs on Fifth Avenue from my office right now. Of course, when that happens, a lot of people opportunistically just come out to engage in looting and in violence and rioting. So, I think that's real. I think there's a very good chance that's going to happen, but I also think that it's not forever.
In fact, it's not even for a long time. Then eventually, we get to a new president and the ability of Trump to contest, to obscure, to create chaos is reasonably high. The ability to actually subvert the outcome is a very different story. Then it would have to be very close indeed, and even then for him to steal the presidency, no. For him to contest the presidency and create a constitutional crisis that would be like 1876 where you need a political outcome, that is indeed feasible if it's really close. That, we will have a good sense of whether that could happen or not in just over 30... say 30 hours plus.
So we'll get there. Don't panic stick with us. GZERO Media will be talking to you all the way through this. Be good, everybody. I'll talk to you soon.
The threat of foreign interference to the US election
There's no doubt that foreign actors like Russia, China and Iran have already tried to interfere in the US election and may go even further than they did in 2016. But at the same time, there have been indications that some foreign leaders, like Vladimir Putin, may already be hedging their bets for a Biden victory. Election law expert Rick Hasen, however, believes that the threat of dirty tricks by foreign actors is still very real – an attack on the US power grid on Election Day, he says, is not outside of the realm of possibility. His conversation with Ian Bremmer is part of the latest episode of GZERO World.
Watch the episode: What could go wrong in the US election? Rick Hasen on nightmare scenarios & challenges
How administrative mistakes could disenfranchise voters
"No election is conducted perfectly, and elections have all kinds of problems.We're going to have more problems because we're running an election during a pandemic." Election law expert Rick Hasen cautions that both campaigns could misconstrue honest mistakes in the administration of this week's national election as nefarious acts. The integrity of the election, he warns, could be compromised by human error and the unprecedented challenges posed by a once-in-a-lifetime pandemic. Hasen's especially concerned about key states like Pennsylvania, Wisconsin and Michigan. His conversation with Ian Bremmer is part of the latest episode of GZERO World.
Watch the episode: What could go wrong in the US election? Rick Hasen on nightmare scenarios & challenges
Election Night: Key states to watch & record-shattering voter turnout
Jon Lieber, Managing Director for the United States at the Eurasia Group, shares his perspective on a special US election edition of US Politics In 60 Seconds:
So, we're about five days out from the election right now.
And the story of this week has been the remarkably steady polling lead for Joe Biden that he's had for months now. The other big story is the turnout, massive amounts of turnout. 100% of the 2016 vote already cast in Texas. 60% nationwide votes already cast. We are headed for record shattering turnout, could be around 155 million Americans voting.
On election night, what are we watching for?
First thing we're watching for is, does Trump win Florida? If he loses Florida, Florida counts quickly, we may know the results late in the night on Tuesday. If Trump loses Florida, then he really doesn't have a path. If he wins Florida, the next state we're going to be looking at is Pennsylvania. Right now, he's down by six votes, six points there. But if he has a lot of turnout for rural White voters, which is his base, it's possible he can turnout a victory. You also have the Supreme Court indicating that they're willing to re-look at Pennsylvania's election laws, even after the deadline because a state court in Pennsylvania said that votes in the mail that are received up to three days after election night could still be counted.
The Supreme Court may overturn that ruling. Another state to watch, Arizona. A Biden win there would be the end of the road for Donald Trump. They also count relatively quickly. They'll be finishing by 10:00 PM Eastern time when they start reporting. A lot of experience with vote by mail. Another thing to watch on Tuesday night is going to be the Senate results. A Biden presidency is effectively going to be stopped in its tracks if Republicans continue to hold the Senate.
So, it's really important for Democrats that they win, if they want to achieve anything next year. So, states that we're watching, Arizona, Colorado likely to flip to Democrats. And then they need two of Maine, North Carolina, Montana, and Iowa, all of which are very, very close races right now. Probably they pick up votes in Maine, seats in Maine, North Carolina and Iowa. And that will be enough for the majority.
The other big question is, do we know on Tuesday or how long after that day do we have to wait until we find out?
That's a real wild card. Florida, Arizona count quickly, like I said. Pennsylvania counts pretty slow. If there's a protracted battle and it comes down to Pennsylvania, you're going to see a lot of legal wrangling over those last few votes. However, Biden's lead there is pretty big right now. Six points in the polling averages, which makes it less likely you have a disputed outcome.